Black Heart (Cursed Hearts #1)(84)

When Shayne suddenly looked away, Tristan knew that Shayne hadn’t been able to keep his promise.

“Tell me,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on Shayne.

Sighing heavily, Shayne shifted his gaze back to Tristan so that he could glare at him through angry green eyes that Tristan suddenly realized matched his own.

“Ye got us sentenced to death on the first day, ye stubborn bastard!”

Chapter 32
Marty waited for shock, disbelief, something to hit her with that announcement, but sadly, she wasn’t surprised, not at all.

Tristan was pretty damn stubborn and seemed to enjoy pushing people’s buttons. So it really wasn’t at all surprising, at least not to her, that he would do something to piss someone off, even in another life, enough for them to want to kill him. Even her father, who loved Tristan like a son, had come close a few times to wringing Tristan’s neck. Not even a month ago, Tom and Denny had to wrestle a gun out of her father’s hands after he’d found out that they’d eloped.

Granted, Tristan had led everyone to believe that it had been all his idea. It hadn’t been, not completely. After she’d agreed to marry him, she’d decided that an engagement of any kind wasn’t going to work, not once Beth got involved. Beth would have stretched it out, made their lives a living hell and made the whole experience torture as she pulled together her version of the perfect wedding.

Instead of going through that nightmare, they snuck off first thing in the morning for coffee and a quick visit to the courthouse. Forty-five minutes later her father was being dragged away from Tristan as he swore up and down that he was going to shoot the bastard for touching his daughter. By lunchtime her father was over it and eating pizza with Tristan in their office and making plans to go fishing next month.

“It was only by the grace of God and this one,” Shayne said, gesturing to her and confusing her even more, “that we didn’t lose our goddamn heads that day!”

“Me? What did I do?” she asked, still having a hard time believing that they were actually talking about her and Tristan like this.

“Ye stopped yer father’s man from taking his head when the dumb bastard didn’t have the good sense to shut the f**k up,” Shayne bit out as he glared at Tristan.

“My father……,” Marty repeated slowly.

“Not Hank, lass,” Shayne said with a wince. “I’m sorry. This must be really confusing for ye. Maybe we should take a break.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she rushed out, afraid that if they stopped now that she would never find out what was going on. “Please continue.”

“Are you sure?” Tristan asked, giving her arm a comforting rub as he pulled her closer.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she lied, knowing that, by the end of the night, she might very well be anything but fine once she found out what they had planned for them.

“Yer father was the king of our area,” Liam said, taking over the conversation and making it very difficult for her to focus.

King?

Seriously?

“He doted on ye when ye were young, which was probably why he indulged ye when ye asked to have Tadgh’s life spared,” Liam explained as he leaned back in his chair and to the side, striking what a lot of women would probably consider a very sexy pose with his perfect muscles bulging in just the right way, but it didn’t do a damn thing for her.

“The two of ye were about the same age when Tadgh went to yer father’s camp. Ye were already promised to another, which was probably why yer father turned a blind eye to the two of ye sneaking off to play together. He didn’t think that he had to worry about Tadgh doing anything foolish.”

“It also probably didn’t hurt that he knew that Shayne here,” Quinn said, gesturing with a nod towards Shayne, “never allowed our little brother out of his sight.”

“Ye had no playmates of yer own, so yer father didn’t see the harm in allowing ye to play with what would one day be one of yer personal guards,” Aidan explained.

“He probably thought that it would create loyalty for ye from Tadgh,” Fergus pointed out before adding, “I doubt the man ever thought that he’d ever have to worry about the two of ye falling in love.”

“I don’t think any of us expected that,” Finn said softly.

She sneaked a peek up at Tristan to find him watching the men in the room and had to wonder if it had been love at first sight then, too. It probably had been, she realized as she looked away. She’d probably taken one look at him and fallen head over heels in love with him even as he’d pissed her off, she thought with a sad smile. She didn’t have to ask to know that this love story probably didn’t have a happy ending.

“What happened next?” she asked when no one made a move to continue telling the story.

After a slight pause, Liam continued where Finn had left off. “When Tadgh wasn’t training, which wasn’t often, he was sneaking off to see ye. At first yer father thought nothing of it, but as the two of ye got older he liked it less and less and made sure that Tadgh knew his place.”

“Whenever Tadgh disobeyed yer father he was punished,” Quinn said.

“Which was often,” Shayne added quietly.

“I don’t think that any of us were really too surprised when we found out that the two of ye had married in secret,” Liam said with a fond smile and a chuckle that was shared by the rest of the men.